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T he second thing I noticed, while I stood frozen on the spot, was Mr. Ellison standing on top of the reception desk, waving his arms and jumping up and down. "You need to get out of here while I keep its attention," he whispered.

The alligator swished its tail, and I fought to keep the scream boiling up in my chest from escaping my throat. "Why are we whispering? Did you call 911?" I whispered back, wondering – in the part of my mind that wasn't shrieking — how a six-foot long alligator had gotten in my office.

"Be calm, be calm, be calm," I whispered to myself. "Alligators are slow and ponderous."

The alligator whipped its head around and fixed its beady eye on me. I couldn't help it. I shrieked at the top of my lungs. Being up close and personal with an alligator had never been at the top of my wish list.

"Get out, get out, you damn fool," Mr. Ellison yelled at me.

I dropped everything but my coffee and edged toward the reception desk. My brain had shut down, but somehow it seemed wrong to leave Mr. Ellison here alone with the deadly creature. I could . . . . I could throw my coffee at it.

Maybe alligators are allergic to lattes.

Maybe I'm just an idiot.

The alligator scuttled around until it faced me, and I shrieked again and threw my coffee at it. Then I hurtled up over Max's office chair and climbed on top of the three-drawer filing cabinet, banging my knee on the drawer and wrenching my injured shoulder. The alligator was right behind me and snapped at empty air as I yanked my legs up behind me. "Ow!" I shouted.

"Did it get you?" Mr. Ellison asked.

"No, I hurt my shoulder. Can you reach the phone?" The phone lay on the floor in front of the desk, so the desk itself would be between Mr. Ellison and the alligator if he could jump down and get it. Of course, he was seventy-three years old and not exactly in shape for all this jumping and climbing.

The alligator did a sort of half-jump thing and snapped at the empty air between it and me and caught a corner of Max's chair in its jaws on the way down. It made a horrible growling noise and rolled over and over with the chair in a blur of greenish-gray lumps, then finally let go.

I tried to breathe, but I couldn't seem to get my lungs to inflate. Plus, it smelled a lot like rotting fish in my office. Not exactly an air-freshener quality aroma.

Mr. Ellison and I both stared at what was left of the chair, then looked at each other. "Use your cell phone, girlie," he gasped.

"I . . . oh, crap," I said, then pointed to my purse, lying on the floor by the door. "It's over there. Mr. Alligator might not let me climb over him to get it. And – what the heck is that ?" I stared at the message painted on the wall next to the door.

GO HOME, YANKEY